The present invention relates to an improvement in hand labellers for adhering labels carrying informations such as price of a good typed thereon, onto objective goods and the like.
In conventional hand labellers, a label blank applied with an adhesive is adhered to a substrate or carrier paper in the form of a rolled sheet adapted to be fed to the labeller body. A typing is effected onto the labels, one by one, by an action of a lever. The labels carrying the typed informations are then successively peeled off from the substrate plate and pressed onto the objective goods to be labelled, by means of a rubber roller provided at the end of the labeller, to be adhered thereto.
In these conventional labellers, the delivery of the labels is apt to become unstable, because the rubber roller 2 is provided in front of the anvil plate 1 which constitutes a support during the typing, as shown in FIG. 1. Namely, the end of the label is likely to be turned above the roller 2, as denoted by L1, or to abut the roller 2 as denoted by L2, so as to disturb the continuous feed of the labels. The anvil plate 1 is adapted to cooperate with a typing device 3 in effecting a typing onto the label carried by a laminated sheet consisting of a substrate plate and labels adhered thereto. The typing is performed by pressing the typing device onto the anvil plate 1, with the laminated sheet interposed therebetween. When the typing device is at its elevated position as shown in FIG. 3, a typing body 3a is brought into contact with an ink roller 4 which is supported by a rocking lever 5 on a shaft 6. When the typing device is lowered as denoted by an arrow A after the application of the ink to the typing body 3a, the rocking lever 5 and the ink roller 4 are moved to positions denoted by numerals 5' and 4', respectively.
For ensuring that the roller 2 is not contacted by the ink roller 4, the roller 2 should have a small diameter. However, too small diameter of the roller 2 may cause a deterioration of the label adhesion. On the other hand, too large diameter of the roller 2 may cause the ink roller 4 positioned away from the anvil plate 1. The typing device provided above the ink roller 4 is positioned further away from the anvil plate 1. The larger distance between the typing device and the anvil plate requires a larger stroke of the typing device 3 and, accordingly, a larger stroke of the lever, which results in a difficulty in rapidly adhering the labels.
To the contrary, when the diameter of the roller 2 is made small, for obtaining the smaller stroke of the typing device 3, the adhesion of the label is inevitably deteriorated.
The conventional hand labeller further has an unsolved problem concerning the typing device. More specifically, as is well known, symbols or numerals are used to represent the price of goods and other informations required for the management of goods, e.g. sales accomplishments and storage.
To this end, the typing device in hand labeller must be constructed to provide an easy altering or changing of the types of numerals and/or symbols.
Typical typing device conventionally used has a plurality of type wheels each of which consisting of an endless rubber belt carrying a series of numerals and symbols on its peripheral surface. These type wheels are supported on a supporting body for circumferential movement, i.e. rotation, thereon. For rotating these type wheels, the rollers supporting the wheels are provided with respective driving wheels having a plurality of teeth-like projections, so that the wheels may be rotated independently. However, in such an arrangement, the type wheel is likely to be rotated erroneously, when the adjacent one is rotated, to disturb the correct arraying of the numerals and symbols. This problem attributable to the driving of the type wheels is more serious in modern typing device in which the width of the type wheel is small in order that the typing device can include more types of numerals and symbols for increased information.
In order to overcome this problem, it has been proposed to provide an operation wheel in parallel with the wheel-supporting shafts and in engagement with the driving wheels, so as to allow the independent driving of the type wheels. However, such a device cannot be incorporated in a compact apparatus, because of its large size.
Another proposal is to drive the type wheels by means of a shaft passing through the center of the wheel-supporting roller. However, this proposal is found also unacceptable in that the length of the shaft becomes as large as two times that of the breadth of the typing device, to project largely laterally from the typing device, which causes inconveniences in handling and designing of the device.
The conventional hand labellers present still further problem, as to the attaching and detaching of the label sheet roll to and from the labeller body.
Conventionally, the label sheet roll is attached to the labeller body in such a manner that both ends of a core member passing through the central bore of the roll are received by respective recesses formed in the labeller body. This way of attaching is however found inconvenient in that the attaching and detaching becomes difficult as the sheet is consumed away to reduce the diameter of the roll. This is true especially when all of the sheet has been consumed away to leave only the core in the recesses of the body. The core is then difficult to access by fingers. In addition, the core which is easily separable from the labeller body is likely to be missed in the labeller body.
Another way for attaching the label sheet roll is to provide the labeller body with two flexible supports between which the label sheet roll is clamped. However, this arrangement is unacceptably large in size and has an unattractive appearance.
A still further drawback inherent in the conventional hand labeller resides in a difficulty in attaching the label sheet along the predetermined path. A considerable number of labels are missed in this work. More specifically, in loading the labeller with the roll of label sheet, at first the roll is mounted on an upper rear portion of the hand labeller, with the lower cover of the labeller body removed or opened. Then, the leading end of the label sheet is passed through a gap between the sprocket and the anvil plate, and is pulled out of the labeller body through the lower portion of the latter. Then, the leading end of the label sheet is fed onto the anvil plate and is made to go round the anvil plate to reach the back side thereof. The leading end of the sheet is then extended to reach the sprocket. This work for loading the labeller with the sheet is extremely troublesome and time-consuming for those who are not trained. In addition, the label blanks having been peeled off from the substrate plate are likely to accidentally stick to the guide or rollers.
The present invention is to provide solutions to the above stated problems of the prior art.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a light-weighted hand labeller which can be handled easily by a single hand for a smooth adhering of labels on which numerals and symbols representing the information such as price and classifications are typed.
It is another object of the invention to provide an improved hand labeller in which the conventional rubber roller is substituted by a labelling cam provided with a pressing surface having a large radius of curvature, which ensures the correct delivery of the labels and pressing of the object at a larger area, as well as a reduced stroke of the typing device.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a hand labeller equipped with a typing device having a compact and simplified structure and designed for an easier change of numerals and letters.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a hand labeller to which the label sheet roll having label blanks adhered to a carrier or substrate paper can easily be attached.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a hand labeller in which the buckling or bending of the labels to be fed to the anvil plate is corrected to facilitate the guiding of the label to the gap between the anvil plate and labelling means such as a labelling roller or a labelling cam.